


Take this story and make it ours

by Florchis



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Episode: s01e06 FZZT, Episode: s01e12 Seeds, Episode: s01e15 Yes Men, Episode: s01e22: Beginning of the End, F/F, Fluff and Angst, Kissing, LLF Comment Project, Love Confessions, Season/Series 01
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-03
Updated: 2018-01-07
Packaged: 2019-02-27 23:53:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 3,285
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13259241
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Florchis/pseuds/Florchis
Summary: A small collection of canon-divergent drabbles where Skye and Simmons get together.





	1. FZZT

**Author's Note:**

  * For [JackEPeace](https://archiveofourown.org/users/JackEPeace/gifts).



> Written for the @aosficnet2 Holidays Exchange at tumblr.

Skye lingers on the door to Simmons’s bunk maybe one second longer than she would have liked, watching the surface of the tea cups she is carrying as a semblance of the calmness she is searching inside herself and seems unable to find.

Now that everything has ended more or less happily, it’s easy to pretend that things are back to normal. But she is having trouble just keeping her hands from trembling, and Skye has never been very good at concealing her own feelings.

Not like this. Not when everything could have very easily took a turn for the worse.

It’s not that she was fooling herself about what’s going on between her and Simmons. She was well aware, even before today, of the way Simmons is able to make her smile until her cheeks hurt, and of the roughness her throat suddenly develops every time she sees the other woman strolling around the Bus on her pajamas. She was not in denial, she was just going slowly, feeling the ground, as they say. She was just… collecting more data, as Simmons herself would say.

She didn’t go into spy-life being completely naive, but she hasn’t been ready for things to change so quickly either: an electricity zap, a couple of spine-chilling discoveries, two hours, a dead lab rat, one open door, and just a gust of wind in the wrong direction and Simmons could be dead.

 _Dead._ Skye breathes in the prospect again and the tea in the cups doesn't look as still anymore.

Simmons could be dead, but she is not, and if that’s not a sign for Skye to seize her opportunity, she doesn’t know what can it be.

She knocks at the door softly with her elbow, and Simmons's voice comes softly too.

“Come on in.” Skye pushes the door with her foot, and is rewarded with the sight of Simmons already bundled up in her bed, her hair still wet but her eyes attentive. She sits up at seeing Skye, smiling, and doesn’t even give Skye time to feel guilty for bothering her. “Oh, Skye! How can I help you?”

Skye raises both her arms with the tea cups, both an offering and an excuse.

“Brought you some herbal tea, thought it might help you sleep.”

“Of course, of course.” Her smile is unwavering while she moves to one side to vacate a spot for Skye to sit on, but Skye knows her enough to know that is all a facade. There is not such thing as being thirty feet away from death and come on the other side unchanged. “You didn’t have to worry about me, Skye.”

They have hugged it out already, but Skye feels again in her bones the need to touch her, to be absolutely sure that she is here, to ground her, to look her in the eyes and say _I too would have jumped out of the plane for you,_ say _Sorry I couldn’t hold you then, I will always be there to hold you from now on._

Instead, she says, “I don’t worry.” She is lying, but this is not the moment to be paying attention to every little detail. “I just care about you, Simmons.” That is selling her feelings short, but better too little than too much, right?

Simmons grips her mug tighter, and Skye wonders what kind of feelings or thoughts this life-changing experience has brought to the front of her mind.

“We have just met.” The comment takes Skye by surprise; there is not accusation or dismissal on her tone, but a tentativeness that Skye wants to throw out of the plane. (Too soon, that was _way_ too soon.)

“I know. But that doesn’t make it any less true.” She makes a pause, looks at her own hands trembling to not look at Simmons’s face. “It’s a little scary to think about everything I'd do for you after knowing each other for a little longer.”

She said it. She said it and there is not taking it back now, she doesn’t _want_ to take it back, it’s out on the open, and maybe it’s not the whole truth but it’s a step in the right direction. Simmons delicately places her hand over Skye’s, and Skye instinctively takes it between hers to warm it up.

“Is it scary, though?” Skye turns her head to look at her; Simmons is looking at her hand sandwiched between Skye’s, biting her lower lip, her cheeks flushed, and Skye’s heart skips a beat. “I think it’s something with a lot of beautiful potential.”

Her hand is not only cold, it is also rough, probably for the contact with reactants and the prolonged use of gloves, and while Skye gently caress her knuckles, she can’t help thinking that this is the hand of a woman who has lived her life at its fullest in a lot of aspects, but maybe not in all of them.    

Is Simmons trying to say what Skye thinks she is trying to say? There is not many ways to find out than to show her own hand a little, take some risks herself. She raises Simmon’s hand to her lips and places one soft kiss on the side of her palm, and Simmons sucks in a sharp breath.

“Potential. I like that word.” She places Simmon’s hand on her cheek and rests it in there, her eyes closed. There is something extremely intimate on this moment that feels almost overwhelming.

“I like _you,_ ” is the reply Simmons blurts out, and Skye opens her eyes, her heart beating faster than she ever thought were possible. Simmons is looking down at her own lap, her lips trembling, and Skye squeezes the hand she is still holding and takes it down to her chest.

“Good.” She is not sure how she is managing to sound so calm, she is just grateful that she is. “What do you think we skip the potential part and move onto the reality part, then?”     


	2. Seeds

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Simmons didn't quite had boyfriends.

“I’m not exactly an ugly duckling, Skye. Being a nubile young prodigy with an above-average fashion sense draws attention from the opposite gender. I got a pulse, you know.”

“I stand corrected, point taken, Simmons had boyfriends.”

“Whew, not quite.” She makes a pause, licks her lips. She never intended for this conversation to go this far, but Skye has asked, and Jemma should reply with the truth, especially since it also can help with some other desires that have been spinning around in her mind. It’s quite fitting, honestly. “Let’s just say that maybe I wasn’t so interested in drawing attention from the _opposite_ gender.”

Skye’s eyes widen, but it’s the only sign of surprise she shows. It’s her turn to lick her lips, and Jemma’s gaze is magnetized by the movement.

“Does that work in present tense too?”

She is so fixated on watching Skye’s lips that it takes Jemma an extra second to process the words.

“What?”

“That you didn’t want to draw attention from the _opposite_ gender.” Skye mimics the exact same emphasis that she used, and Jemma can only smile. “Is that still true _now?”_

This is the defining moment, isn’t it? It’s not only a coming out moment, but also a declaration-of-intentions kind of moment, and Jemma grips her drink just to have something to ground her.

“Yes. Yes, it is.”

Skye makes a humming noise in the back of her throat, and Jemma’s stomach turns.

“That is neat. Since, you know, I’m down a similar path.”

Her mouth has gone completely dry, and she can only croak out, “Then we could be path buddies.”

Skye snorts. “That’s one way to put it.” She gets up, all grace and calculated intention, and offers up a hand to Jemma. “Could I get this dance, path buddy?”    


	3. Yes Men

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After being so close to losing Skye, there is something Jemma needs to say.

She keeps repeating them over and over in a loop.

Trip doesn’t know her or her story, much less her feelings, and there is no rational basis on why Jemma should pay his opinion much attention.

And yet, she can not seem to take his words out of her head.

_You can't imagine your life without her._

Trip meant it as in “you have built a meaningful teammate connection with her”, and he is not wrong, but he is not exactly right either.

Because Jemma can not imagine his life without Fitz, who is his partner, and a part of life so ingrained in her that she would put her life in risk blindly in order to keep him safe. She would even go as far as to say that a similar thing is true about Coulson and May. (She would like to say that the jury is still undecided on Ward, but bloody hell, the man jumped out of a plane to rescue her; she owes him that much.) _That_ is a meaningful teammate connection.

But Skye? Skye is _such_ a different story.

Because when she thinks of the possibility of Skye being ripped apart from her for good, just because of an egomaniac going rogue, Jemma feels her blood boil, and at the same time a sadness so excruciating that it is a hand around her neck, closing off her windpipes.

She thinks of not seeing Skye’s smile ever again and there is a switch going off inside her, a dying light that could never be ignited again. And maybe that is a little more than a “meaningful teammate connection”.

Maybe that is a little more like _love._

It’s not exactly an unexpected epiphany; it’s more like looking at a puzzle you have been putting together for some time and realizing that you have got far enough that all the pieces make sense, that every slight change in color and the slope of every small line are letting you look at a gorgeous landscape, at a lovely future within grasp.

Trip’s words put all her mental gears into motion, and once Skye is stable and on her way to full recovery, and they got rid of that awful asgardian, Jemma decides that the moment to do something about it has arrived.

“Hey, Simmons.” Skye greets her with a smile, even through the show of laying down obediently as she has been ordered. “Have you come to set me free?”

No, but she has come to set _herself_ free. Not that she can tell Skye that, not in so many words.

Except that maybe she can.

“No. Sit up.” She sits down on a chair next to Skye and on reflex takes her wrist and checks her pulse. It’s speeding up a little, and that makes her own speed up too. What even is this woman doing to her? “Maybe soon. But that is not why I came.”

Skye is looking at her expectantly, colour high on her cheeks, and her determination staggers for a second. This comfortable camaraderie they have going is great, it should be enough, why would she need to completely ruin everything by looking for something more?

Because she knows herself, and how could she be happy with less when the _everything_ is so close that she can almost taste Skye’s chapstick on her own lips?

She inhales, exhales. _Come on, Jemma, you have never been a coward and you are not about to start now._

“I don’t know what would I have done if I had lost you.” _That_ is not what she was planning to say, but it still is close and personal enough that Skye looks at her with confusion. Because, yeah, probably in the last week or so each member of the team had made her a similar declaration, each one in their own terms, and now Skye doesn’t understand why Jemma needed such a long preface for hers.

“Aw, Simmons, I feel the same w-”

“No.”

She would like to just lean into the hand that Skye is rubbing up and down her arm, but she came in here with a mission and she knows her own protocol; she won’t leave until it’s finished or she dies trying. (Too soon? _Way_ too soon.)

“No, Skye, is not the same.” She rushes through the rest of her speech, because Skye is opening her mouth to interrupt her, and Jemma is not sure she would be able to keep herself in the right track if Skye touches her again. “I didn’t mean it in a ‘would miss my teammate’ kind of way.” Inhale, inhale. _You can do this._ “I meant it, I _mean it_ in a ‘I think I’m in love with you’ kind of way. No, that is not proper scientific language, scratch that: I _am_ in love with you.”

A heavy silence follows her statement, and finally, Jemma exhales. The consequences can still be terrible, atrocious, dreadful, but better outside than inside; from now on she can face  whatever consequences with her chin on high and an iron-clad determination.

And then something completely unexpected happens: Skye leans over and kisses her.

It’s not-, it’s not a world-stopping moment, just a brush of lips against lips, and Jemma is a tad too busy gasping to really enjoy it.

But it is happening, and who needs a life-altering kiss when the fact that _Skye_ wants to kiss _her_ is life-altering enough?

“You silly, silly girl.” Now, Jemma Simmons _resents_ being called “silly”, because, you know, she had had _tests_ done that prove that adjective wrong, but maybe she doesn’t mind it so much when Skye is whispering it to her while she nuzzles her nose against Jemma’s. She probably won’t mind _anything_ much in those conditions. “How do you think I felt when you jumped out of the dam plane?”

“Wo-worried?” Skye is so close, Jemma is unable to form a reply more complex than one word.

“That is selling it short.”

She is about to ask what would be the proper word for Skye’s feelings, but Skye is kissing her again, and now Jemma is having enough good sense to place a hand on Skye’s cheek and keep her close and, to be honest? Proper descriptions, correct terminology, accurate words?

Completely overrated.          


	4. Beginning of the End

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When they find themselves stranded at the bottom of the ocean with only one breath of air, tough decisions need to be made.

They are stranded in the middle of the ocean and Simmons is waxing _fucking poetry_ about laws of nature and life and, really, Skye could just cry.

She could just lay on the floor of the pod, in the middle of scrambled medical supplies and just cry, but that would mean leaving this amazing woman here to die too, and there is no way in hell she is going to do that. She tries to be proactive instead; this is not her strongest suit, but she can help Jemma focus and, by working together, they come up with a solution.

Until it’s not a solution at all, it’s a fucking death sentence.

“We are not doing that.” Her voice is flat, emotionless, very May-like, and she understands then that May’s apathy is not about lack of emotions; it’s probably about feeling too much and just not letting those feelings interfere with her actions. “That is stupid and we are not doing it.”

Simmons shakes the oxygen canister at her and rolls her eyes, and Skye loves her and hates her evenly.

“It’s not stupid! It’s common sense! I have a broken arm and, even without that, you are in better physical shape than I am. Your chances are much higher than mine. It’s just the logical conclusion.”

She feels like she is drowning; is the air inside the pod wearing thin already?

“And what if I don’t care what the logical thing is, um? What then?”

Simmons looks at her like she just splurted out a sentence in german.

“Why would you choose to not go with the logical conclusion? Give me _one_ good reason!”

“Because I am in love with you!”

There is not even silence falling onto them, both their ragged breathings, and the ever-present sound of the ocean surrounding them. It should be a magical moment, and instead is this fucked up thing, and Skye _hates_ it.

“That is _so_ unfair.” It’s Jemma’s first reaction, and Skye gets very defensive very fast.

“Well, but it’s true. Deal with it.”

That is when Jemma surges forward and kisses her. Skye gasps; air is scarce as it is and Jemma seems fixed on taking what little is left straight from Skye’s lungs.

She could live with that, actually.

“Je-Jemma.” Her hands are trembling, but still she pushes Simmons gently apart. Her arm brace was painfully stabbing Skye in the ribs, and she needs to look Jemma in the eyes anyway, know exactly what is going through her head.

“I feel the same way.” She looks stern and unwavering, and it makes Skye’s heart clench. “Where does that leave us?”

“I-, I don’t, I don’t know.” She would like to have a better solution to offer, of course, but she doesn’t. This is a fucked up situation they are in, and doesn’t look like it could be resolved without someone or everyone getting hurt.

Right now, she is too busy getting lost in Jemma’s almond-honey eyes, and _fuck,_ they don’t have time for this, but if they don’t make time now, maybe they will never have time for this.

“I’m sorry, Skye, but this is just simple math; there are two of us and only one breath.” Her face looks calm, but she is on the end of her rope, Skye can tell.

“No.” Her mouth speaks on auto-pilot, because she doesn’t have, not yet, a conscious, fully-fledged solution, but as she starts speaking, the only option comes to her like a bolt of lightning. _Of course_. It is, actually, quite simple. “No, there is another way.”

Jemma pulls a face.

“Skye, I don’t think-”

“No, babes, hear me out.” Using the term of endearment makes her shiver. She needs both of them to live long enough to have an opportunity to use it again. She will _make_ that opportunity for them. “I will take the oxygen.”

There is a quick succession of confusion and then relief passing over Jemma’s features, and if she can not pull this off for this woman, she wouldn’t be able to pull it off for anyone else.

“Good. That’s, that’s good. Then you-” Jemma is going into a devastating combination of full-panic and overachieving mode, and Skye takes her hands between her own to draw Jemma’s attention back to her.

“-I will take the oxygen and use it to drag both of us up and out.”

Jemma looks at her, blinking; Skye wonders if her brain just can not process her words or if it processed them and just registered them as nonsense.

“You can not do that.”

“I think I can handle you, Dr. Simmons, double Ph.D. in being little and weighing nothing*.” She holds Jemma between her arms; she has faith on herself, but cherishing every opportunity never hurt anybody. When Jemma doesn’t smile at her attempt to clean up the air, she sobers up quickly. “You said it yourself: there is only one breath of air. The only option is that one of us drags the other one. And since your am is broken, I shall do it myself. I’m refusing to accept any other possibility.”

Jemma is crying now, heavy silent tears of fear and desperation and maybe, just maybe, also hope. Skye leans over and wipes them out with kisses.

“I promise you that this is our beginning and not our goodbye, babe.” Jemma nods fervently and kisses her. Her lips are salty and chapped, and Skye has never felt anything more wonderful in her life. “Now let’s set this up and get the hell out of here.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *= I _think_ I've read this somewhere, but for the life of me I can't find where, so if you have read something like this before, let me know?

**Author's Note:**

> This story is part of LLF Comment Project, whose goal is to improve communication between readers and authors. This author invites:
> 
>   * Short comments
>   * Long comments
>   * Questions
>   * “<3” as extra kudos
>   * Prompts
>   * Image reactions/li>
>   * Reader-reader interaction
>   * This author replies to comments.
> 



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